Like it should come as a big surprise that I would wind up finding airsoft. Not like it was lost to me. After all, I had used airsoft parts to modify paintball guns as long as four years ago. My M203 is an airsoft item. Up until now though it just did not register on my radar as anything more than another outlet to get cool MilSim parts for my paintball guns.

So why airsoft and why now? Well, my soon-to-be-step-son wanted to get into it. He got himself a gun at Christmas and was bit by the airsoft bug. Only problem was none of his friends played and unlike paintball you can't rent an airsoft gun at any of the local fields that host games. (Which, might I add is a real shame...) So over the course of the last few months he has done his best to try and convince me that I need to get an airsoft gun too.

Well at first I wasn't exactly excited about the prospect I'll admit. I've played paintball for over 20 years off and on (about five regularly) and I liked the sport of paintball. I was primarily concerned about cheaters in airsoft. I mean, it's bad enough when you have guys wiping off big orange globs of goo to play on what would happen if there was no goo to wipe? Why would anyone leave the game?

The more he talked to me about it though the more interested I became. I never have liked the look of a hopper and while I could just attest it to me getting older and thus codgier I really don't like the mess associated with paintball. Plus there was the issue of expense. While going out and buying a whole new gun isn't exactly cheap the prospect of lower ammunition costs was really a bonus. Then there was the whole realism aspect...also a big plus for me. The more I read and the more I learned the more I wanted to try it.

So finally I got my own gun...not a marker...a gun. That's another nice change. I grew up with paintball GUNS. We never called them markers. They shoot things thus they are guns and the whole "PC" spin of calling them markers never really sat all that well with me. So now here I was with my first Airsoft gun. I chose an A&K M16A4 with RIS...which in paintball terms is a very BIG and HEAVY gun. My fellow teammates can attest that I must have something that would give The Rock arm strain to carry all day long in order to play paintball and with airsoft it would be no different.

And, like paintball, first thing I did when I got it home was open it up. Oh sure I read the directions, but I had to see what made this thing tick and I had to make it tick better. I read up on gearbox shimming, hop-up bucking replacement, spring upgrades, gear upgrades, tight bore barrels, and improved pistons, heads, and cylindars. I didn't go too crazy and figured I would just start with lowering the spring to something that would shoot around 350 FPS rather than the 400+ it shot out of the box. Later I would find out that fields allow electric airsoft guns (Called AEGs) to shoot up to 400 fps so I would probably have been fine with the stock spring. That's about par for me.

So I shimmed the gears, installed the new spring, lubed everything up, installed a new hop-up bucking and called it good. Now, that sounds like nothing spectacular but it took me forever to get the gearbox back together just so with a couple of different trips to the computer to figure out just how everything was supposed to go back together. Now it is easier but like any other first time venture it took some doing to get it right.

We headed out to a new field for me called Mr. Paintball down in Escondidio, CA. I had never heard of Mr. Paintball though it must have been around for some time and as the former practice field for the tournament paintball team Dynasty it had to be decent. Decent wasn't the word. The field we would be playing airsoft on that day was only one of many fields the park has...and was larger than some paintball parks I've been to...not just one field at these parks but the entire park!

The people there were great and when my step-son's gun wouldn't fire when we got there I let him use mine. I was going to be content with being a spectator for the day when another player, upon seeing my plight, allowed me to borrow an extra bolt-action, gas-powered, sniper rifle he had with him. I went out with that and while I didn't hit anyone with it, still had a blast. About halfway through the day I got to use my M16 while my step-son switched to the sniper rifle (after asking the owner if that was okay, of course) and loved playing with it. It was far more manuverable without a hopper attached and all the extra gear on my back that normally would have been with me on a paintball outing. Firefights were usually fast and short while I spent most of the time trying to outflank the opposing side. It felt like old-school paintball and I had a blast.

When it was all over I didn't miss the lack of paint drenching my clothes and the mess my gun had become either. A little wipe down, a bit of silicone down the barrel, and the gun was ready to be put away. Simple. Easy. Nice.

Does this mean I'm giving up paintball? Hell no. However I will be playing a bit less and playing airsoft a lot more. I went through a total of about 300 rounds that day out of a $13 bag of 4000. Compare that to 1000 rounds of paint out of a 2000 round box at $50 per box and you can see just how much cheaper airsoft can be. The principles are similar and it will help me improve my paintball game as well so the reduced cost means I get to play more often for less money.

If you haven't tried airsoft and are an avid MilSim player like me you really owe it to yourself to give it a shot.